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“Depression is your body saying ‘Fuck You’ I don’t want to be this character anymore.”

-Jim Carrey

The older I get, the more I appreciate Jim Carrey for not just his comedic and general acting genius, but also for his insights and life advice.

Carrey is someone who has been open about depression in his own life and how he has learned to deal with it. The man who starred in a movie called “The Mask”, ironically?, talks about the mask that he and many others wear every day. It’s one you put on for the world, but that often doesn’t align with who you really are or who you really want to be.

In one of his interviews (where the above quote comes from), he goes on to refer to the word “DEPRESSED” as “DEEP REST”, meaning that your body need to be depressed in order to take deep rest from your every day life.

Deep rest is not only about taking a break to relax and recharge your batteries, but it’s also about taking time to reflect on who you are vs. who you are pretending to be. Understanding the difference between your actions, your beliefs, and your attitudes.

In Psychology there is a term for when your actions, beliefs, and attitudes do not align…Cognitive Dissonance

What is Cognitive Dissonance?

The mental discomfort the arises when your thoughts, beliefs, and opinions are misaligned with the actions you take. In Jim Carrey’s example it’s the difference between who you think you are (or you think you should be) as compared to how you act on a daily basis. Often this can lead to stress, mental strain, or depression.

Let’s look at another common example:

You know exercise is important to your physical health, but you might not do it.

These are 2 conflicting ideas. It would be like standing on 2 boats. One foot on the boat that says “exercise is important” (belief) and the other on the boat that says “I’m not gonna do it” (action). The longer this goes on for, the further the boats drift away from each other, the more pain that occurs

How do you fix this?

Common Cognitive Dissonance Resolutions

1. Change Your Actions to match Your Beliefs

   Easy right? You know exercise is important, so you start.

   Now your actions & values line up.

   This is especially important for values that are positive. Aligning your actions with positive beliefs will drive a sense of pride and integrity in to your life. You’ll find a happier life with people seeing that you follow through with your beliefs

   Put your money where your mouth is

2. Change Your Beliefs to Match Your Actions

   You learn new information that changes your beliefs, potentially indicating that you ARE doing all the right things, just thinking about it the wrong way

   This is common with perfectionism. Deep down inside we all know that there is a limit to how “good” something can be and still provide a return on time invested. Learning to accept that you are taking all the right actions can close that dissonance gap and be very freeing.

3. Justify The Misalignment Between Action & Belief

   This happens often, but it’s not the action you should take

   You know the gap exists, but you tell yourself it’s fine or it doesn’t matter. The boats are drifting further apart and you’re just popping a Vicodin to numb the pain away.

   Some common signs of justification or rationalization of dissonace:

   • Blaming others for your actions - “I wouldn’t have this problem if it wasn’t for person X”

   • Comparing yourself to others - “Yea, but at least I’m not like person Y”

   • Labeling yourself - “I’m a hot mess, what can I say, that’s just who I am!”

   • Effort Justification…

Effort Justification

SimplyPsychology.org has a great article on Cognitive Dissonance and this section caught my eye because it really hit home. I’ve said it, and I hear a lot of other mid-career professionals say it too. “I’ve worked so hard all these years, my effort has to be worth it. Right?”

Unfortunately, many of the people who say this are also wildly unhappy.

This is called Effort Justification. It’s almost negatively self fulfilling. You try to convince yourself that something was worthwhile because you committed a significant amount of time to it. Essentially you justify it because you don’t want to feel like a failure.

I’ll be honest, I felt like this way for a long time (and still feel like it sometimes).

It took me a lot of time to unlearn a lot of the beliefs that had been engrained in my mind over the years. Ideas of what “success” is and ideas of how we’re “supposed” to live our lives. I’ve literally spent hundreds of hours unlearning all the B.S. that the world teaches us.

How My Life Changed

I almost hate saying it because it sounds cheesy. Like one of those late night “gurus” that’s trying to sell you some sleezy self help garbage.

I’ve spent so much time reflecting on my own life, figuring out where I need to change my actions and where I need to challenge my own beliefs. (Sound like familiar steps? Funny how that works right? 😀 )

The truth is that I really do feel so much different than I did 2-3 years ago.

My outlook on life has completely changed. My priorities, approach to challenges, goals, and approach to “success” are just much more aligned than they used to be. FAARRRR from perfect, just better

Why We’re Here Today

I actually started my blog, email, website all that fun stuff because I wanted to take what I’ve learned and hopefully help some others along the way.

I’ve already been able to share some cool nuggets with people and they have expressed how much it has helped them out. This brings me a tremendous amount of joy

At the risk of rambling any further, I’ve given myself a goal that I call:

“Help A Hundred”

Over the next few weeks/months/years? I’m going to focus my work on finding 100 people to help on their own self development journey. There are still a lot details I need to iron out, but I want to help you reduce some of your own cognitive dissonances & live a happier life. So I’m putting it here so I can commit to it!

Keep an eye out for more info over the next few emails & social posts!

(also if you’ve made it this far drop me a line and let me know your thoughts, always open to feedback!)

One Final Thing! 👋

I really love hearing from you guys and am always looking for feedback. How am I doing with this newsletter? Is there anything you’d like to hear me talk more (or less) about? Which aspects of the newsletter do you enjoy the most?

Hit reply and even just say hi!

I’d love to hear from you & I respond to every email!

Thanks for reading!

~ A.J. Zampella ✌️

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Little about who I am and what I’m here to do:

15 years in tech & 20 years as a DJ

Mid-career professional trying to thrive in work and life

I spend 100s of hours figuring it out so you can learn in <5 minutes a week!

Other Interesting Things Around the Web I do:

• Free DJ Sets/Mixes on Soundcloud - Yes I still DJ pretty often too

• #AJsBookClub - Big Book Guy. We talk about “success focused books”

• Grim & Grind - My clothing line, all things Creepy & Caffeinated